Together in Rural Unity

As a form of Valentine to the U.S. public, Rep. Richard Nolan [D-MN8], introduced H.J.Res. 29, which proposes an amendment to the U.S. Constitution (overturning the Citizens United ruling by) providing that rights extended by the Constitution, are rights of “natural” persons only:

Section 1. [Artificial Entities Such as Corporations Do Not Have Constitutional Rights]

The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.

Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.

The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.

Section 2. [Money is Not Free Speech]

Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate’s own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.

Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.

The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.

H.J.Res. 29 has been referred to the Judiciary committee and is facing a serious uphill battle to make it out of committee as well as to the floor for a vote. From 2011-2013, only 12% of House joint resolutions made it past committee and only 5% were enacted or passed.

Rep. Mark Amodei, our representative to Congress from Nevada’s CD2, sits on the Judiciary committee. It’s time for us to twitter-mob Amodei with tweets to pass #HJRes29 out of committee and then demand that it receive a vote of the House. We need to get that Citizens United ruling overturned, and to do that we have to amend the U.S. Constitution. We can’t do that until we can get an amendment passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Here’s a sample tweet:

@MarkAmodeiNV2 #HJRes29 referred to Judiciary cmtee upon which YOU sit—expect you to work to pass it out of cmtee for vote by House!